The tilde is not, but there's no use in trying to point out a flaw with that argument, it's correct. If anything implies a contradiction that thing is false. In this case, A implies the contradiction (B and not B), therefore A cannot be the case.

zeph`:As a matter of fact, I couldn't agree with you more. Unfortunately, pointing out logical fallacies is a lazy and generally unconvincing way of refuting argument, because they don't direct establish the falsity of the conclusion of the original argument.

You've said that several times.

1. You assume that someone disagrees with the conclusion that God exists. They could agree with you and simply dislike poor logic.

2. You assume that someone has any conclusion at all about whether God exists. They might very well be agnostic, like me.

3. You assume that typing more words is more convincing to others than simply posting a pic because it works that way with you. To be fair, I'm assuming that assumption.

Vangor:Do you think people who actually use faulty logic care about any amount of discussion with regards to a topic?

No, and I guess my fault in this is conflating the kind of philosophy I do in actuality with the discussion that goes on here. Not to say there aren't intelligent people in here, but they generally aren't on the side of obviously flawed arguments - I can understand the use of the images as a time saver.

CDP:Human population can be extrapolated backwards to see how long it would have taken to achieve present-day numbers. Using conservative growth figures of one-half percent per year, Earth's population would have been eight people about 5,000 years ago, comparing very well with the number of people on Noah's Ark. Based on evolution's claim for the origin of man, the same ½ percent growth calculation for the human race results in a huge present day population that can not be justified by the fossil record or current statistics.[34]

• Rivers pour tons of material every year into the Earth's oceans. Scientists know with a fair degree of accuracy the quantity of each element's influx as well as the current concentration of these elements in the oceans. By simple division, they can calculate the time it took to reach present levels, even accounting for sedimentation and dissipation. None of these elements give an age of the Earth even coming close to billion of years.[34]

• Polystratic trees are fossil trees that extend through several "strata" of rock, sometimes penetrating 20 feet deep. According to evolutionists, a 20 foot deposit of rock would take place slowly and uniformly, over a great many years. However, the tops of such tree trunks would have decayed long before the new rock layers had a chance to surround them.[34] At Katherine Hill Bay, Australia, a fossilized tree can be seen extending over twelve feet, through several sedimentary layers. This tree is testimony to the catastrophic and rapid burial that must have taken place.[10]

Link (new window)

You're either the best troll I've ever seen, or the worst analyst in the (~1.5 million year long) history of mankind.

I mean, he's really, seriously, implying that spells in DnD are REAL MAGICAL SPELLS. And that's just farking hilarious.

Yeah. I mean, even IF there were spells which could really for reals affect people, in D&D it only says what the spells do, not how to cast them (aside from "you need sulfur and bat guano"). Even the Wizard's Spell Compendiums would be useless in a real-life situation.

I personally love that panel because it looks like Debbie's having a seizure or something. And her left eye has apparently migrated several inches down her face.

bartink:Perhaps your definition of agnosticism is different than mine.

Agnosticism: We cannot know if god exists.(Gnosticism): We can know if god exists.Atheism: Without theistic belief.(Theism): Believing in god (God).

Agnosticism (without knowledge, from the greek) is an epistemological position - an answer to the question of whether or not we can know god exists. Atheism (without belief in God) is an ontological position - an answer to the question of whether god (God) does exist.

You can be any combination of one each of the epistemological terms and ontological terms.

bartink:Perhaps your definition of agnosticism is different than mine.

Unfortunately, your definition is neither practical nor proper. Agnosticism refers to what you know, and the absolute position of agnosticism is strictly that the knowledge of a question (generally the existence of deities) is unobtainable. Agnosticism with regards to you not knowing whether or not a deity exists is, in fact, atheism, since you lack a belief in a deity.

If the premises are invalid, then the deduction is invalid. That's basic Aristotle.

zeph`:I don't disagree with you. At all. As a matter of fact, I couldn't agree with you more. Unfortunately, pointing out logical fallacies is a lazy and generally unconvincing way of refuting argument, because they don't direct establish the falsity of the conclusion of the original argument. I don't deny that they're useful, just that they're overplayed - if you really wanted to demonstrate any understanding of the topic you'd attempt to show how not only is my logic awful, but my conclusion actively false.

If the original argument was a straight logical deduction, what other sort of attack is there apart from logical fallacies? The conclusion is actively false because the premises never got off the ground. This isn't advanced logic here.

Renart:The devil is very real to Jack Chick, and is constantly coming up with new schemes (rock and roll, D&D, the fossil record) to ensnare us!

Well if there is one thing you can take away from any and all Jack Chick tracts is the belief "If I can imagine it, it must be real."

A Dark Evil Omen:I've killed people outright like that and seen other GMs do it as well, but it take serious player stupidity for that to happen, of the "I wedge myself in the giant roller trap trusting that my indestructible link mail will protect me!" variety.

I've only seen this happen twice; Once, we were clearing an incredibly difficult labyrinth on our way to kill Vecna (yes, that Vecna) and were confronted with the classic Black Hat/White Hat logic puzzle.

Rather than try and reason his way through it and conclude "I don't know", the second guy simply yelled out "BLACK!" and was immediately killed.

The other time it happened was when our group was (unbeknown to us) confronted with the Deck of Many Things, slightly modified, in the form of a gypsy doing Tarot.

One of our players recognized it as the DoMT, and did his best to meta-game and pull as many cards as he possibly could - which went amazingly well for a short period of time, netting him a couple levels in XP, a Sword of Three Wishes with all three wishes, and a few other things. Problem was, since it was the form of a gypsy doing tarot, he could just keep asking for more cards and finally the GM and the rest of the team just got pissed at his meta-gaming and when he finally drew a bad card his character was completely disintegrated and soul ripped apart and contained within some Lich's phylactery.

He apologized, re-rolled, and we later had to fight his old character in lich form.

zeph`:bartink: Perhaps your definition of agnosticism is different than mine.

Agnosticism: We cannot know if god exists.(Gnosticism): We can know if god exists.Atheism: Without theistic belief.(Theism): Believing in god (God).

Agnosticism (without knowledge, from the greek) is an epistemological position - an answer to the question of whether or not we can know god exists. Atheism (without belief in God) is an ontological position - an answer to the question of whether god (God) does exist.

You can be any combination of one each of the epistemological terms and ontological terms.

Correct. I am am agnostic Atheist. Based on the evidence presented, there is no God, but who the fark knows for sure anyway.

zeph`:Agnosticism: We cannot know if god exists.(Gnosticism): We can know if god exists.Atheism: Without theistic belief.(Theism): Believing in god (God).

Agnosticism (without knowledge, from the greek) is an epistemological position - an answer to the question of whether or not we can know god exists. Atheism (without belief in God) is an ontological position - an answer to the question of whether god (God) does exist.

You can be any combination of one each of the epistemological terms and ontological terms.

Or the ordinary use of agnostic which simply states that someone has no position on whether there is a god or not, since they see no evidence of them.

bartink:zeph`: Agnosticism: We cannot know if god exists.(Gnosticism): We can know if god exists.Atheism: Without theistic belief.(Theism): Believing in god (God).

Agnosticism (without knowledge, from the greek) is an epistemological position - an answer to the question of whether or not we can know god exists. Atheism (without belief in God) is an ontological position - an answer to the question of whether god (God) does exist.

You can be any combination of one each of the epistemological terms and ontological terms.

Or the ordinary use of agnostic which simply states that someone has no position on whether there is a god or not, since they see no evidence of them.

bartink:Or the ordinary use of agnostic which simply states that someone has no position on whether there is a god or not, since they see no evidence of them.

I despise the "ordinary use" of Agnostic. I am in IT and I hear all the damn time when referring to a new customer we are onboarding to manage: "we are agnostic about it" meaning "build whatever you want, we'll manage it" or whatever. In reality it's saying "we don't know" HATE HATE HATE.

It's like the redefining of "begging the question" HATE HATE HATE. Yes, someone pissed in my Cheerios this AM.

PC LOAD LETTER:I despise the "ordinary use" of Agnostic. I am in IT and I hear all the damn time when referring to a new customer we are onboarding to manage: "we are agnostic about it" meaning "build whatever you want, we'll manage it" or whatever.

PC LOAD LETTER:I despise the "ordinary use" of Agnostic. I am in IT and I hear all the damn time when referring to a new customer we are onboarding to manage: "we are agnostic about it" meaning "build whatever you want, we'll manage it" or whatever. In reality it's saying "we don't know" HATE HATE HATE.

It's like the redefining of "begging the question" HATE HATE HATE. Yes, someone pissed in my Cheerios this AM.

PC LOAD LETTER:If the premises are invalid, then the deduction is invalid. That's basic Aristotle.

Validity refers to the form of an argument. A valid argument is one in which the premises necessitate (logically entail) the conclusion, an invalid argument is one in which the conclusion is not necessitate (not logically entailed) by the conclusion. An argument's premises CAN NOT BE either valid or invalid - validity is not the kind of thing that applied to premises, only formal arguments. The word you're looking for is sound.

Soundness

Soundness refers to the content of an argument - namely the truth of its premises. A sound argument is an argument whose premises are true.

For the truth of the conclusion to be established, an argument must be valid (of proper logical form) and sound (having true premises) - only in this way can the truth of a conclsion be established.

How can people not understand that CDP is always, always doing that tongue in cheek? For the love of god he has a cartoon mocking creationists on every single goddamn post! He uses well-refuted, stupid arguments that are the real creationist arguments stripped down to expose their corrupt hearts! He smells like brined cheese! I can tell from the pixels! I'm an incredibly gullible person and I saw what he was doing with his Boobies! I don't even consider it trolling! Why?!?

The real bridge to atheism from agnosticism is the principle that if an extraordinary claim has no good evidential support, you are justified in believing that it is false. It's not all that arrogant, really, and doesn't require that you claim anything like comprehensive answers to all the great questions.

/Having said that, belief in evolution by natural selection does not really require atheism or even agnosticism. It only requires that one not take the Bible as literal truth. And that is so easily done (and generally required for coherence and consistency) that really, the point has been moot from the start.

Dude - that's a valid argument. It's a case of modus tollens. Furthermore, I've stated multiple times that I agree with EVERY criticism leveled against my originally ridiculous arguments.

SoxSweepAgain: /Tautology, from a religious person.

I'm an agnostic athiest.

ninjakirby: Whats the dealio?

The tilde is not, but there's no use in trying to point out a flaw with that argument, it's correct. If anything implies a contradiction that thing is false. In this case, A implies the contradiction (B and not B), therefore A cannot be the case.

Your posts read as if you're posing as an agnostic atheist, and not actually an agnostic atheist.

Obdicut:How can people not understand that CDP is always, always doing that tongue in cheek? For the love of god he has a cartoon mocking creationists on every single goddamn post! He uses well-refuted, stupid arguments that are the real creationist arguments stripped down to expose their corrupt hearts! He smells like brined cheese! I can tell from the pixels! I'm an incredibly gullible person and I saw what he was doing with his Boobies! I don't even consider it trolling! Why?!?

Vangor:ninjakirby: I mean, he's really, seriously, implying that spells in DnD are REAL MAGICAL SPELLS. And that's just farking hilarious.

I absolutely love this one. My nerdom practically rages at all of the problems associated with this, at least according to 3.5 rules. Not locating a trap doesn't automatically trigger it, DMs don't "declare" people dead, any person attached to their character probably has someone in party capable of resurrection or the ability to pay a priest elsewhere, poisons don't do damage, she'd get a reflex roll from any sort of poisonous trap anyway, yadda yadda yadda.

Nah, that tract goes back to the good old days of First Edition (I know, because someone gave it to me when I was playing AD&D). Poison was often a save-or-die kind of thing, and if you were playing an elf, that meant you were toast if you blew the save. Of course, the entire tract was a load of horse hockey, D&D didn't do anything like that to me.

Bloody William:UnspokenVoice: So we can't teach the kids good science? Ya know, the whole looking for flaws and then returning with a new theory if applicable thing? Not that I care one way or the other but, really, being taught to look at theories scientifically instead of blind belief might actually have some benefits.

As soon as a better alternative is presented, we should be open to it.

Intelligent design is not a scientifically viable (or remotely legitimate) alternative, and the flaws in evolution as we currently know it, while present do not disprove the entire approach. Evolution is our best explanation for the development and diversity of organic life on this planet, and is backed up with far, far more evidence and research than ID.

bartink:Or the ordinary use of agnostic which simply states that someone has no position on whether there is a god or not, since they see no evidence of them.

Having no position is still atheism as you do not believe in one or more deities. You're free to call yourself agnostic with regards to wanting no side in the conversation, but...this seems awkward considering your joining an internet conversation.

shipofthesun:CDP: And this shouldn't be surprising, since the very basis for scientific research is biblical creation.

One little statement, one tiny, little, made up, completely untrue statement, and everything else in your comment is rendered logically neutered. God is apparently not in the details.

In the polite world of geoscientific research, people can continue to discuss the relative merits of the models of northern underthrust and southern overthrust for explaining Ballard Down and continue to research how rock mechanics is compatible with the assumption that large-scale décollement and sliding supposedly occurred. But there are a bigger issues at stake:

Is the chalk at Ballard Down telling us that the geological column is of dubious value for unravelling earth's history, and at worst totally misleading?

Is chalk as a whole part of the Flood period?

Are the "Upper Cretaceous" sediments confirmation of the Flood?Are the extinctions in the "Upper Cretaceous" caused by the Flood?

Decision-making

In an ideal world, we would like all evidence to point clearly in the same direction, but that ideal will never occur. For example, whilst we have shown that the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods were possibly contemporaneous in certain geographical areas (rather than being separated by millions of years), we have not yet attempted to demonstrate that every part of the geological column was contemporaneous with some other part of the geological column. In areas of everyday life, and in industrial situations where investment plans have to be made, since these decisions have to be made in the absence of full understanding, human beings will adopt a process of looking for something "good enough" (Miller 1974) in order to move forward with their lives and businesses. Keen and Morton (1978) call the process "satisficing." Most of us come to Christ in the same way. He is seen as having key answers to life, but not everything is clear. From a human point of view there are always those nagging doubts which we live with. We see through a glass darkly, as the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12 are translated in the King James (Authorized) Version.40 Personal devotion and evangelism would cease if doubts controlled us. Now faith is being sure . . . of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1), and surely that must apply to our view of geology, as well as our view of eternity.

Bringing matters to a head. When we have serious doubts, we are entitled to put out a "fleece" as did Gideon (Judges 6:37). In fact, we can do it twice (verse 39). God also tells Ahaz (Isaiah 7:11) to ask for a sign. Where the whole process can go horribly wrong is when we have the signs, but want more than God is prepared to give us. Jesus effectively said "enough is enough" to the Pharisees (Matthew 12:38++) when they wanted a miraculous sign. Herod had a similar hope for another sign (Luke 23:8), but Jesus did nothing. Similarly, secular studies on decision-making show (for example, Lee 1997 and Sivia 1996) that agreement on what will trigger the decision one way or the other must be made earlier in the search for relevant data and not constantly be postponed. Otherwise, the decision-making process degenerates into farce, with one or the other side claiming that there is a bit more evidence just around the corner which will finally clinch their preferred choice.

Implications for Decision-Making. If we had made the decision about which Flood model is tenable before understanding the revised interpretation of what was erroneously called the Tedbury "hardground," we would have had one more item on the list of factors that support the cachetical/Recolonization model, but it should not have been such a significant item that it would have swayed the decision in favour of believing in such a model. Because our understanding of geology is continuing to develop, there are going to be changes to our understanding of the relative importance of various features which contribute to our choice of Flood model.42 But if we already have a large number of features which support one of the models, then it is unlikely that we will have made a mistake. If you can trust the Bible, then you have to go for a visible evidence model of the Flood anyway.

ImplicationsA discussion on decision-making within a domestic, industrial and Christian context has been made. This effectively says that the story of chalk is complete-that chalk is a Flood deposit and its other proximal "Upper Cretaceous" deposits. The age of the chalk is less than 10,000 years.

The other rocks beneath the chalk (to basement) are therefore also Flood deposits and their ages must be less than 10,000 years.

Christians should be willing, rather than reluctant, to promote the principle that the bulk of the fossil-bearing rocks under our feet are a visible reminder of the awesomeness of the biblical Flood. But the judgment shown by God during that event followed warnings of what was going to happen and that the Ark would provide safety (2 Peter 2). The New Testament equivalent is that the sacrificial death of Christ provides a means for the atonement of sin.